A Meccano Treasure Chest
Meccano is a construction toy. It was invented over 100 years ago by Frank Hornby and went on to become one of the most popular and well known of all toys. Meccano models are made up from a kit of standard parts held together with nuts and bolts. With Meccano you can make working models of practically anything. The only limit is your imagination.
I have been making models from Meccano for years. On this page you will find some of the many models I have made.
 The Loch Ness Monster |
 Robin Hood |
 Steve Davis in Snooker action |
 A Formula One racing car in orange and white. |
 A novelty clock. The large disc rotates once per minute. |
 Two dogs doing what dogs do. |
 My late Father in Law, Fred, building a crane |
 Rudolph the Reindeer has a sting in the tail |
 Steam locomotive |
 An electric car with hand generator |
 Front view |
 This machine was made for a challenge requiring a ball to hit a target three times out of three. |
Here I am with some models made for a Spanner Christmas Challenge
 My version of Konkolly's Clock |
 A Meccanograph (pattern drawing machine) |
 Santa brings Meccano |
 This gun fires elastic bands |
 A floating canal boat and wharf |
 Monster truck |
 Pudsey Bear |
 The Hubble Space Telescope |
 A little Bugatti |
 A Pteranodon swoops over Jurassic plains |
 The Small Hadron Collider Made for a Spanner Challenge, this
model is all about the story that goes with it:
Basically, you wind the handle and the hook spins round the model on the end of the string. As you put more energy into the system, the hook swings higher until it collides with the target trunnion. The target can be adjusted to allow collisions at different energy levels. The collision is simulated in the photograph as my camera has not get a fast enough shutter speed to get the real thing. Now, at first glance, you might not think that my model has much in common with it's big cousin the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. However, bear with me on this one because there are more similarities than you might think. For example: 1. A Meccano hook contains a lot of hadrons (admittedly, there are a lot of leptons as well, but these are just getting a free ride) 2. At the LHC, hadrons move in a circular path constrained by 9300 superconducting electromagnets. In my SHC model, exactly the same thing happens except that my hadrons are constrained by a bit of string. 3. Both the LHC and the SHC smash hadrons into each other. It's just that I use rather lower energy levels. The LHC produces collison energies of about 14 TeV. (The SHC is about 13.99999..... TeV less). 4. Both use circular paths. The LHC circumference is 26,659m. Mine is a bit less than 1m - hence the "Small" bit of the name. One difference is the cost. The LHC cost £2.6bn. The SHC came out of the Meccano junk box for nothing. I'm sure you will all want to know if the science is as good. Well.... I have been running mine for a while now and I have not detected the Higgs Boson yet. However, neither has the LHC. Update 2012. The LHC has now detected the Higgs Boson. |
 A big wheel  A sailing boat |
  Jack and the Beanstalk. Going up
and coming down.
|
 Another Bugatti. I am told it should have been blue. |
 A tiny bulldozer |
 A Wide Mouth Frog |
An Ornithopter (flapping winged aeroplane) made for the 2012 Spanner Christmas Challenge which allowed cardboard parts.
 Another Christmas Challenge Model Right - A model of the canal bridge near Bolton which is made of giant Meccano parts. |
 |
Spotter plane
 Building a Tower Bridge |
 Mersey Ferry |
 Ask the Professor. A Trivia answering machine |
 A sort of half train |
 Merry go round with galloping horses |
 Thurne Mill, a Norfolk Broads Landmark |
 Above - A rock band with strumming action Right - Yes that helicopter really does fly |
 |
 Fred and an articulated lorry |
 Games spinner. Its a bit like rolling a dice |
A Ford Anglia. I used to drive one of these.
Lunar module
.jpg) Thunderbird 1 |
 Thunderbird 3 |
I am a member of Spanner which is the virtual Meccano club on the internet. Spanner is an e-mail reflector system which allows members to communicate on various Meccano topics. It is a bit out of date really but if you are interested in Meccano it is a useful source of Meccano knowledge. To join in the fun, click this link.
To find out more about Meccano then the best place is the NZ Meccano Website. It is packed with useful information and loads of pictures including some from me. It also has a useful Forum called Rust Bucket.
I hope you liked the models. Keep looking in as I am making more models all the time.
